General News: Cars ‘Talking and Hearing in Harmony’

Date: 17 October 2008

As part of the fight to reduce road accidents and traffic jams, ETSI has published a Harmonized Standard enabling the automotive industry to introduce radio systems for ‘smart’ vehicle communications systems, so called ‘co-operative’ systems.

Such systems enable cars to 'talk' to other cars as well as to road infrastructure providers, based on wireless communication technology. Warning other drivers of adverse road conditions, or of a crash which has just happened are just two examples of possible uses for the technology.

The European Commission (EC) published the decision providing for a single EU-wide frequency band to be used for immediate and reliable communication between cars, and between cars and roadside infrastructure, on 5 August 2008 (30 MHz of spectrum in the 5,9 Gigahertz (GHz) band), which will be allocated soon by European Union (EU) member States.

The Harmonized Standard ETSI EN 302 571 Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS): Radiocommunications equipment operating in the 5 855 MHz to 5 925 MHz frequency band; Harmonized EN covering the essential requirements of article 3.2 of the R&TTE Directive completes the set of legal and regulatory instruments required for introducing such communications technologies widely know as ‘Intelligent Transport Systems’ (ITS) across the EU.

Introduction of these communications technologies is not limited to the EU and can be accomplished in all European states since the European Communications Committee (ECC) published the documents "ECC Decision of 14 March 2008 on the harmonized use of the 5 875 - 5 925 MHz frequency band for Intelligent transport systems (ITS)" and ECC Recommendation (08)01:"Use of band 5 855 – 5 875 MHz for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS)" in close collaboration with ETSI.

ETSI further complements Technical Standards by running interoperability events such as ETSI PlugtestsTM and by creating specifications for conformance testing. This package ensures that most reliable, secure and safe technologies will see the light of day in vehicular communications environments only."

For further information please contact: Mr Martin Arndt, ETSI Technical Officer TC ITS, at Martin.arndt@etsi.org